Climate change is a global problem. So what organization would be better positioned to tackle it than the United Nations? But the UN record is as mixed, as its organizational structure.
 | A United Nations General Assembly session on climate change led by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (Photo: Reuters) |
Achim Steiner has about 60 million dollars a year to save the environment. It’s not much compared to the estimated 200 billion plus dollars needed by 2030 to just freeze greenhouse gas emissions at current levels. But as the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Steiner has no choice but to try.
But the UNEP is not the only UN body trying to fix environmental problems and global warming. Here is an overview.
UNEP – The Grand Old Dame
Founded in 1972, the UNEP is the oldest, but not the most influential UN organization dedicated to environmental protection. But despite its relatively small budget, the UNEP has something to show for itself. Its Montreal Protocol helped reduce emissions of ozone-damaging chemicals by 95 percent. This was the first global environmental success story and, for many, a model for the fight against carbon dioxide emissions.
The UNEP’s claim to be the “voice for the environment” within the UN system is not unfounded. Still, its voice seldom stands out of the cacophony of UN organizations that deal with environmental questions, sometimes spreading different messages or haggling for influence and money.
 | Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC Yvo de Boer, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali December 2007 (from left). At one point, a frustrated Yvo de Boer left the podium in tears (Photo: Reuters) |
UNFCCC – The Battlefield
When it comes to climate change, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the forum for international policymaking. Borne out of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the UNFCCC is first and foremost an international treaty on how to limit greenhouse gas emissions. It is signed and ratified by 192 countries.
The treaty has always been a work in progress, and member states meet regularly to make amendments. In 1997, UNFCCC member states decided to add a protocol specifying mandatory CO2 emission cuts for industrialized countries. This became known as the Kyoto Protocol.
Kyoto had always been considered as a first step, but far short of achieving the necessary reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Every year, UNFCCC signatories convene a climate summit, or a Conference of the Parties in UN talk, and try to improve the initial stipulations.
These meetings can get tense. After 12 exhausting days of deadlocked negotiations and procedural bickering at one of the last conferences in Bali, UNFCCC head Yvo de Boer, known as the “hard man” of climate change negotiations, left the stage in tears.
IPCC – The Noble Science
The UNFCCC is the realm of diplomats, but their work is based on the research of scientists from around the globe. But with governments struggling to come to an agreement on what to do about climate change, defining how dangerous the problem is has become a political minefield as well.
In 1988, the UNEP and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), another UN agency, set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).The IPCC does not conduct its own research. Instead, it brings together thousands of leading climate scientists every few years to summarizes current scientific knowledge in a series of reports.
According to Alain Hubert, co-founder of the International Polar Fundation, such unprecedented scietific cooperation is the true achievement of the IPCC. "It is a real revolution to get so many scientist from all over the world together for so many years to get a picture of what could be our lives at the end of the century."
Since 1991, the IPCC has published four sets of reports that have established global consensus on four crucial points:
1. Climate change is happening
2. Rising greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, are to blame
3. This change is most probably man-made
4. If unchecked, the impacts will be catastrophic
But the IPCC also – and this is where politics come in – makes recommendations for how to tackle the problem. Its unrelenting commitment for the fight against climate change earned the IPCC the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
UN General Assembly – The Talk Shop
The United Nations General Assembly (GA), the central body of the UN, resembles a national parliament. Any topic can be addressed by delegates from all UN member states. But unlike the UN Security Council, the GA has no power to enforce regulations or act as a world government.
Critics have labeled it a “talk shop,” but it is in the General Assembly that delegates convene special summits on new global problems like climate change or HIV/AIDS.
With developing countries representing the majority of UN member states, the general assembly is also highly critical of the reluctance of industrialized countries to effectively fight climate change. According to Christoph Bals, head of the environmental NGO Germanwatch, this is one of the strengths of the UN.
"It’s not only rich countries, but also the most vulnerable countries that have a voice," says Bals. "But since decisions have to be made in consensus, it is also a slow process," he adds.
UN Security Council – The World Police
The drought and crop failures, the UK argued that climate change qualified as a security concern.
The Worldwatch Institute, a leading environmental NGO, called the meeting a milestone. And while the debate did not result in a tangible resolution, it meant that climate change had been recognized as one of the fundamental security questions of the future.
editor: Thilo Kunzemann
latest update: September 8, 2009
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